Recycle bin erasure failures

[mdvbilt]

I have two .lnk files that failed to delete when I did a 1-pass erasure of the recycle bin. They are currently housed in hidden directories in the \$recycle\ bin directory (visible through DOS window only). They were links that had warned me that they would be breaking the link and making the program inaccessible to me if I put them into the recycle bin.

Now when I attempted to erase the bin, I received two "failure" notices in the Eraser window. Though the files can be viewed via the DOS window, they cannot be accessed.

So that's the bug.

Any idea on how to erase the files? Or fix the bug?

Thanks! :D

[Joel]

I have the same problem with Vista - all the files I download and then erase end up in $recycle.bin and I have an error message that says they have failed to erase.

If I run eraser again the same message comes up every time for each file, so I have a list of files tha have failed to erase. If I try to open the file via eraser it still opens fine. How do I erase these files?

[Joel]

It'll help if you could post the erase log.

Joel

[Joel]

The Erasing Report says:

Information:
Statistics:

Erased area = 2912 kB

Cluster tips = 14 kB

Data written = 20384 kB

Write time = 3.17 s

Write speed = 6434 kB/s

Failures:
Failed: C:\$Recycle.Bin\S-1-5-21-1703193312-1047051010-30392675-1001\$R11KEDT.avi (Administrator privileges required)
Failed: C:\$Recycle.Bin\S-1-5-21-1703193312-1047051010-30392675-1001\$R2DUKC6.exe (Administrator privileges required)
Failed: C:\$Recycle.Bin\S-1-5-21-1703193312-1047051010-30392675-1001\$R6C6NTI.exe (Administrator privileges required)

[Joel]

I am also receiving the failures on two different machines. I have also tried logging in with the Vista hidden administrator to erase the recycle bin, but it does not work.

Information:
Statistics:

Erased area = 0 bytes

Cluster tips = 0 bytes

Data written = 0 bytes

Write time = 0.00 s

Failures:
Failed: C:\$Recycle.Bin\S-1-5-21-3263893962-1489388735-1370193339-1005\$R5MYPXL.ini (Access is denied.)
Failed: C:\$Recycle.Bin\S-1-5-21-3263893962-1489388735-1370193339-1005\$RC174CQ.lnk (Access is denied.)

[Joel]

I have a temporary solution for those experiencing this problem when the Vista recycle bin will not allow you to erase the locked files:

1. Make sure your Folder Options are set to 'Show hidden files and folders' and uncheck 'Hide protected operating system files'
2. Use the Vista Search located in the start orb; under Advanced Search, make sure 'Include non-indexed, hidden, and system files' option is checked.
3. Search for 'recycle' --- the first result that should show up will be a folder named '$Recycle.Bin'
4. Right click and press delete '$Recycle.Bin' then click OK or Allow to all the prompts.
5. The files that were locked by Recycle bin should now be deleted, you can run the Wipe Free Space option in Eraser to make sure they are gone from your hard drive.

Moderators and developers, I appreciate the great work put into this program; please address this problem with Vista recycle bin.

[Joel]

I have the same problem - is this a one off solution, or will it have to be done everytime?

Henry

[Joel]

I believe this is one of those bugs which can't be reproduced accurately. I see it sometimes but haven't found a good reproducible case for it. I'll investigate it as time permits.

Joel

[Joel]

I saw it again! this time it is 2 header files left behind. I have a feeling it is because of a corrupted MFT. I'll chkdsk and see what happens.

Joel

[Joel]

The files that I download and are zipped do not erase and produce the "$Recycle.Bin" problem. When I extract them and then try to erase the extracted files, they erase without a problem. Does this help?

[Joel]

As a matter of fact it complicates things. Eraser doesn't deal with file types differently. It treats all files the same way. I have a feeling that sometimes when you open a zip file the contents are extracted without you knowing by the zip program and when you are done they delete these files.

The Recycle bin is a beast in itself. We meddling with it is dangerous to say the least.

Joel

[Joel]

I have a feeling that the problem is caused by us erasing the entire recycle bin.

The reason is this: The recycle bin under NT-based systems is a shared resource. The user GUIDs are subfolders of the Recycle Bin folder and therefore Eraser thinks that all the files - even those which do not belong to you - can be erased and tries to do so. Obviously, files which don't belong to you can't be erased and you get that error.

Therefore, it follows that the resolution for this is to only erase files belonging to you.

Just a hypothesis.

[Joel]

One more hypothesis (which I saw myself) is that subfolders of the recycle bin has permissions which deny you access to the files, so the recycle bin cannot delete the files either. These files probably can't be deleted as Explorer won't show the contents of the folder unless you change the permissions through the command line.

[Joel]

Also, the recycled folder contains recycle bin contents for every user on your computer. v6 now only erases the recycle bin containing your user's contents. This bug should be fixed.